Mr. Yollop chuckled. “Well, I’m not
a lawyer. Nevertheless, I must decline to act
as a depository for your obviously ill-gotten gains.”

“Gee, that’s tough,” lamented Mr.
Smilk. “Wouldn’t you just let me
drop it behind something or other,—­that
book case over there say,—­and I’ll
promise to send for it some night when you’re
out,—­”

“No use, Cassius,” broke in Mr. Yollop,
firmly. “I’m deaf to your entreaties.
Permit me to paraphrase a very well-known line.
’None so deaf as him who will not hear.’”

“If I speak very slowly and distinctly don’t
you think you could hear me if I was to offer to split
the wad even with you,—­fifty-fifty,—­no
questions asked?” inquired Cassius, rather wistfully.

“See here,” exclaimed Mr. Yollop, irritably;
“you got me in this position and I want you
to get me out of it. While I’ve been squatting
here listening to you, they’ve both gone to sleep
and I’m hanged if I can move ’em.
I never would have dreamed of sitting on them if you
hadn’t put the idea into my head, confound you.”

“Easier said than done,” snapped the other.
He managed, however, to get his benumbed feet to the
floor and presently stood up on them. Mr. Smilk
watched him with interest as he hobbled back and forth
in front of the desk. “They’ll be
all right in a minute or two. By Jove, I wish
my sister could have heard all you’ve been saying
about prisons and paroles and police. I ought
to have had sense enough to call her. She’s
asleep at the other end of the hall.”

“I hate women,” growled Mr. Smilk.
“Ever since that pie-faced dame got me chucked
out of Sing Sing,—­say, let me tell you something
else she done to me. She gave me an address somewhere
up on the East Side and told me to come and see her
as soon as I got out. Well, I hadn’t been
out a week when I went up to see her one night,—­or,
more strictly speakin’, one morning about two
o’clock. What do you think? It was
an empty house, with a ‘for rent’ sign
on it. I found out the next day she’d moved